“Oh, dash it!”

“And you will kindly exclude from your conversation all that is suggestive of the bar, the billiard-room, and the stage-door. Mr. Filmer will judge you largely by your conversation.”

I rose to a point of order.

“Yes, but why have I got to make an impression on this⁠—on Mr. Filmer?”

“Because,” said the old relative, giving me the eye, “I particularly wish it.”

Not, perhaps, a notably snappy comeback as comebacks go; but it was enough to show me that that was more or less that; and I beetled out with an aching heart.

I headed for the garden, and I’m dashed if the first person I saw wasn’t young Bingo Little.